Ordinary I and Extraordinary Them

nt front, the girls were able to see through my facade.
I had a feeling that something like this had happened before too.

The two girls looked at me, grinningly.
I pushed them away by their shoulders and retreated deeper into my chair.

I could easily imagine the sullen face I was making at that time.

Mom was looking at our exchanges very happily.

She was almost going to be forty.
Even then, she still had a youthful appearance.

Back during the high school days, she was a beauty who was admired by all the boys at school.

Kaede had very noticeably, inherited her genes, but why was it that I didn’t receive even a shred of it?

If my dad was a handsome man, then we could have been born a pair of handsome siblings.
However, unfortunately, my dad resembled me.
He was a man without any distinguishing features.

No, wait.
Since I was the son, I guess it was me who resembled him, huh.

However, different from me, he was good at associating with people.
He would proudly talk about how, because of his merits, he had climbed his way up the social ladder to reach the position he was in now.

Well, since I wasn’t really interested in his ‘position’ in his office, I didn’t know……

Shizuku was already used to this kind of spectacle, but it was a first for Kirasaka.

Kirasaka still had her mouth wide open.
She issued a few words, “You guys have a good relationship……”.
As you could see, her thoughts were leaking.

“After me is, of course, Kaede-chan”

I looked at mom with a sullen face.
At this point, I had already given up and let nature take its own course.
Then, as if to follow up on mom’s remark, Kaede said this.

“That goes without saying!”

Why are you competing with mom?……

It would seem that it was something that couldn’t be surrendered to even mom.

I was this loved by my sister……I would boast about it to Hino-kun next time.

There wasn’t any doubt that he would cry and feel bitter about it.

His reactions were predictable.
The upside to talking with him was that I never got tired of it.

“I too won’t lose”

If we only looked at the number of years that Shizuku had known me for, she wasn’t inferior to Kaede, and she didn’t lose out.

Was it because she had own pride, but she made it sound like a warning? I would guess that her target was Kirasaka.

Usually, at this point, Kirasaka would, in her own way, stage a comeback with her skilful way with words.
However, this time, it would seem that she had some thinking to do.

“……”

It was quite a rare sight to behold, for her to remain wordless that is.

She looked down on the desk, not saying anything.
It wasn’t only me, but mom, Shizuku, and Kaede were all looking at this strange situation before us in surprise.

“……You guys have such good relationship between family members.
I am jealous”

Those were the words that had exited her mouth.